BARRY SONNENFELD: ‘Gene Hackman is in constant, self-loathing pain… he hates himself’

At some point during preproduction Hackman called me from his home in Santa Fe. He suggested Harry Zimm, Gene’s character in Get Shorty, have fake capped teeth that were way too white. 

I loved the idea and added a gold chain with the Jewish letter ‘Hei’ on it. 

Gene suggested Harry, the schlock producer/director, thought himself a bit of an artist and should have a goatee. I had never seen Gene with facial hair, so I said, ‘Yeah. Maybe. Why don’t you grow one and we’ll look at it together when you get to LA.’

‘I’m not going to f***ing waste my time growing a goatee if you’re not going to f***ing use it in the film,’ Gene, racing from zero to a thousand in about point six seconds, screamed. ‘Forget it!’

Although I said: ‘You’re absolutely right Gene. I love the idea. Definitely grow it,’ here’s what I actually was thinking: ‘How hard is it to NOT SHAVE?’

I figured if I hated it, I’d deal with his facial hair in person. Gene arrived in LA a month later. His goatee, fake capped teeth, and ‘Hei’ were brilliant.

We started filming on a Monday morning, beginning with a short sequence with Rene Russo and Gene, then got ready for the first scene of the show with Hackman and John Travolta. 

Gene was a professional, memorizing his lines before showing up on the set.

In fact, he had a unique script.

A week or two before starting a film, Gene cuts and pastes his screenplay, removing any descriptions or stage direction that a writer adds to help the studio understand a character’s action, emotion, or motivation. 

While a writer might type ‘”Go to Hell,” Harry screamed furiously’ in Hackman’s script, it just read: ‘Go to Hell.’ He didn’t want any f***ing sh**head writer telling him to scream furiously, unless that was a choice he made.

The two actors, cinematographer, prop person, assistant director, script supervisor, and I had a closed set rehearsal. After working on the scene, we’d open it up to the rest of the crew to watch a final rehearsal at which point the actors would get into hair, makeup, and wardrobe. 

The grips and electrics would light and put the camera in position.

Travolta and Hackman were about to shoot their first scene together.

‘Hey Gene. How was your weekend?’ a charming John Travolta asked a very professional, intimidating Gene Hackman.

‘Well, with eight f***ing pages of dialogue, I pretty much spent the whole f***ing weekend memorizing today’s work.’

‘That’s a waste of a weekend,’ replied the charmer. ‘Uh oh,’ thought the director.

Indeed, Hackman was off book knowing every line of dialogue. John, on the other hand, probably hadn’t read the script since his agent made his very lucrative deal. 

Fumbling his lines, or forgetting them entirely, I could tell John had no idea how angry Gene was getting. I knew we were in for a very, very long day. 

What I didn’t know was that in an hour my wife Sweetie would be in tears and the crew would be on the lawn playing frisbee, taking naps, and drinking coffee.

The actors went to hair, makeup, and wardrobe, and the crew lit the scene. Sweetie, an associate producer on the show, stopped by the set, which was high in the hills of Malibu overlooking a sparkling Pacific Ocean.

There are a variety of reasons why I direct standing or sitting next to the camera. Being close to the actors allows me to be an immediate audience. As soon as I call ‘cut,’ I can step in and give notes. 

I get a better sense of performance viewing the actors live than on a monitor. Sitting around ‘video village,’ as it is called, with producers, studio executives, and crew members, watching the actors on a television screen, can make you lazy, plus you are frequently offered unwanted advice.

My director’s chair is a saddle on wheels. The saddle makes me sit up straight and is much better on my back than a sagging canvas director’s chair. The twelve wheels [three on each corner] offer comforting stability and allow me to race up to actors without having to stand.

The camera was set up for a two-shot master, which meant we saw Hackman and Travolta in the same frame. 

For almost any film, but especially comedies, you want the actors to talk fast. Comedies play best in master shots. Action and reaction in the same frame. The more you have to cut to different angles to create pace and performance, the more your comedy isn’t funny. Pace should be created on set, not in the cutting room.

Playing a scene in a master shot obviously requires both actors to know their lines!

Unfortunately, while Hackman spent his weekend learning his, who knows what John was doing. Gene’s performance was fantastic, John was slow on the uptake and he fumbled and mumbled through the scene. 

Hackman was getting more and more frustrated with John’s delayed responses and lack of pace.

The camera assistant announced he had to reload the camera and while that was happening, I got off my saddle and walked from the set over to Sweetie who was watching the takes from video village.

‘Hackman is fantastic, isn’t he?’

‘Just great,’ Sweetie replied. ‘Really great.’

‘Loaded,’ the camera assistant announced. I walked back to the set.

‘Roll camera,’ I said. ‘Oh, and Gene, stand up a sentence earlier on this take. I think it will be funnier. And, action.’

At which point, Gene, instead of speaking the dialogue as written, screamed: ‘You know what? Cut the f***ing camera. You truly don’t have a f***ing clue, do you? You’ll take advice from anyone. You’ll take direction from your own f***ing wife! Don’t you have any god-damn opinions of your own?’

I turned to the first assistant director: ‘Check with the caterer. See if they’re ready for lunch.’

‘Ready for lunch? They won’t be ready for at least three hours.’

‘Ask them.’

I was looking at Sweetie. She was mortified, with tears welling up in her eyes.

‘Two hours, if they rush.’

‘OK, everyone,’ I heard myself say. ‘That’s lunch.’

As Gene was fuming towards the front door, I stopped him: ‘Hey, Gene. One second. Just so you know. If it helps to yell at me this entire movie, go ahead. It doesn’t bother me at all, so keep screaming.’

‘What the f*** are you talking about?’

‘I know you’re not angry at me. You’re angry at John for not knowing his lines and you can’t yell at him, since you’ve got to work with him for the next ten weeks. 

‘You know my wife didn’t tell me how to direct, and I know you need to yell at someone, so yell at me. But please leave Sweetie out of it.’

Hackman uttered the terrifying words that still give me shivers 29 years later: ‘Come to my camper. We’ll have lunch.’

In addition to directing Gene Hackman once, I’ve directed Tommy Lee Jones three times. In many ways, they’re the same guy, although they’d hate to hear that. Rumor has it they despised each other while working on The Package.

Gene and Tommy are both manly men: Gene flies airplanes and was a race car driver. Tommy is a cowboy. They also both happen to be great actors, and that throws them off. They hate being fussed at. They’re not comfortable playing ‘dress up.’ They dislike people putting makeup on their faces, having lint picked off their clothes. But there they are, two manly, highly paid actors. These contradictions lead to self-hate.

Sitting in Gene’s trailer, preferring to be anywhere but here, Hackman tells me he wears a hair shirt [a garment made from rough animal hair, usually goat, designed to make the wearer – usually British – uncomfortable]. 

Gene is in constant, self-loathing pain. Fine for him, not so great for Barry. He tells me how much he hates himself, how hard it is to be him, and how angry he always is.

Travolta and Hackman had other run-ins, but in every case, John was oblivious to Gene’s frustration and I took the brunt of his fury. 

The second incident was the next day, also at the Malibu house.

I realized the only way I was going to have any pace, any chance of staying on a master shot, was to write giant cue cards for John. I had never done this before or since, but it helped.

Hackman, Travolta, and Rene Russo are in Rene’s dining room. At one point John asked me where we were starting from, and before I could answer, Gene, pointing to the cue cards, said: ‘Right here, John. Right at the top of your cue card.’

John didn’t realize Gene was making fun of him. Since Gene’s anger in this one incident wasn’t directed at me, I thought it was funny.

Not so funny was the last of Gene’s fury, once again with me as foil. We were filming at Abiquiu, a fancy southwest restaurant in Santa Monica. It was a difficult day with a lot of different setups, including a scene that had John pulling Jim Gandolfini’s stunt double down a flight of stairs. 

The location was a very expensive rental and our hours were limited. We bought out their lunch service but had to be out by dinner.

Unfortunately, Travolta had been nominated for an Academy Award for Pulp Fiction and he decided today was the best time to have various clothing designers offer up their options for his free tuxedo wearing at the Oscars. 

Hackman, Rene Russo, Gandolfini, and Delroy Lindo were cooling their jets far too long waiting for John to come out of his camper. My sciatica was raging. Finally, after the third time we knocked on his camper door, John came to set.

I have never worked with anyone who loved being a movie star as much as John Travolta. I’m not saying he didn’t also love acting, but he truly loved the fame and glamour and all things that Tommy Lee Jones and Gene Hackman hated.

John is charming and not self-aware. He arrived on set for the rehearsal with no sense that he had kept everyone waiting. He proceeded to ask the cast their thoughts about various clothing designers.

Gene had no opinions.

We finished a rehearsal, I dismissed the cast, and mentioned to the cinematographer and script supervisor that when we went in for Gene’s close-up, his looks to John would be the wrong screen direction and we would need an additional angle where it would be correct. 

Gene overheard me and, with the previous license I gave Hackman to yell at me, and given how furious he was at John, Gene started screaming: ‘Find a f***ing camera angle where all my looks work. I’m not doing a scene where only some of the f***ing shot works.’

‘The truth is, Gene …’

‘In my entire f***ing career, I have never worked with a more clueless, inept director.’

‘Actually, Gene …’

‘Never have I done a shot where only some of my looks were usable.’

‘You know, Gene. Pretty much every day you’ve been on a movie set there have been camera setups where some of your looks were in the wrong screen direction.’

‘Bullsh*t. Find a camera angle where all my looks work.’

‘OK. Found it. Go get dressed and made up, and when you come back the camera will be in a place where all your eye-lines are in the proper direction.’

I knew Gene would calm down now that he had vented. I also suspected he would forget our discussion about screen direction, which is exactly what happened.

Adapted from Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time: True Stories from a Career in Hollywood by Barry Sonnenfeld, published on October 1, 2024. Copyright © 2024 by Barry Sonnenfeld. Used by arrangement with Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group. All rights reserved.